About this book

Objective

Children will participate in book talks to gain and share meaning, retell the story, and make connections to real-life experience. They will also write a response to the story.

Book Summary

When Emily Elizabeth's friend Charley decides to offer a group of tourists ice cream from his father's closed ice cream shop, something goes terribly wrong with the machine. Surrounded by an ice cream mess, Charley and Emily Elizabeth learn an important lesson about asking for help.

Materials

Before Reading

Show the children the book Clifford and the Big Ice Cream Mess. Ask them to look at the illustration and describe what is happening. Can they predict how the problem might be solved?

Booktalk Activities

Ask the children to recall the sequence of events in the story and record their answers on a sheet of chart paper. Ask the students to describe the setting. Who are the main characters? Invite them to summarize the story. What is the story about?

Engage the class in a discussion about the meaning of the story. Ask the following questions to encourage sharing of ideas.

What do you think the author wanted us to learn from this story?

Do you think that Charley did something wrong when he gave the tourists ice cream?

What would your students have done if they were in this situation?

How do you think Charley's father felt when he came back and saw the ice cream mess?

What was the lesson that Emily Elizabeth and Charley learned?

Ask the class if they have ever been in a similar situation where they should have asked for help, but did not. Have they ever done something that they know they are not supposed to do? What lessons did they learn from these situations?

Writing Response

Directions

Provide the children with the suggested writing materials. Write the title and author's name on a chalkboard or chart paper. Ask the class to copy the information on the first lines of their paper. Ask them to write on the following topic: What would you have done if you were with Charley and Emily Elizabeth?

Work with the students to edit their work. Then invite them to create drawings to illustrate their responses.